My friend Rebecca is on fire. She founded a new band and a new sound, and it’s got her so fired up and excited, it’s hard for her to think of anything else. She’s my peer mentor and we talk every few weeks, and the last time we Skyped I was telling her I got many things on my cooker. That’s when she stopped me on my track and asked:
What is your one thing?
It’s a bit of a role reversal because when we started talking a couple of years ago she was the one who was torn up in a few different directions. She wanted to steer her career in a more meaningful direction because she couldn’t see herself sustaining her smorsgabord the rest of her life.
Now she’s found it and it’s taking her over. She’s having to rewrite her goals for the year because the priorities have shifted. She has a hard time sleeping at night because she can’t wait to work on it.
I am an empath so I felt the fire in her belly and I left our call feeling inspired and jazzed. But then I took a look at my platter — and I can’t quite put a finger on my “one thing.” 2017 so far has been about blogging, and then slowly plugging away at my next single for the solo act. But I’ve also been collaborating with my Minnasia singer Voua ‘Bob’ Yang, and in the meanwhile a steady stream of YouTube subscribers are coming on, looking for more songwriting analysis or guitar gear videos. I must admit that blogging is turning on my buttons right now, but it is hard to balance it out, I’m spending a good chunk of my creative energy there so it’s difficult to go around to other things.
I can tell you that my dream of dreams to be in a rock band. Not just any rock band, a rock band with a singer, a cellist, and a rhythm section, where many of us sing and create vocal harmonies. I have a particular sound in mind, where the bass and cello and guitar don’t all play the same thing, but they layer simple but distinct riffs atop each other. And together we sing about finding hope in dark places.
And you know, I am working on that, though not directly. I am broadcasting my voice and making music that I can, and building my personal brand is helpful in attracting like-minded people.
But if you were to ask me why I’m not directly working on assembling that dream band, then I don’t have a good answer for you. It seems daunting and scary.
In Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art he defines Resistance as the force that gets in your way of doing anything good or worthwhile. And it gets fiercer, the more important and impactful that thing is. On the other hand, you can use it as a gauge for how important something is — the more scared you are, the more you should actually do it!
If I were to eat my own dog food, I should be working on my band. Not that I’m going to quit my job and go on tour next week, but connect what I do now more directly with my dreams. I feel shaken and disturbed at this prospect, but there is also a lot of excitement, too.
I’m going to look into this. I’ll let you know how it goes.